Are You Addicted To Twitter?

Nowadays social media is a big hit. It is the in thing. All the action is happening on twitter and facebook. Most of the times Breaking News gets broken on twitter. Before the arrival of twitter nobody knew that 140 characters would one day come to rule our existence and these 140 characters would become the power house of information on anything under the sun. Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon called twitter. You name the celebrity, he or she is on twitter. You name the media house, it is on twitter.

Having highlighted the easy part that everybody is on twitter, let me move on to the difficult part. Once you are on twitter, what next? Not everybody can succeed on twitter. It is the most cruel place on the planet if you are a NOBODY. But it is the sweetest place if you are a SOMEBODY. The moment a celebrity signs up on twitter, not only it becomes the headlines of the next day’s dailies but also fellow celebs start giving warm welcome by shouting out the newbie and urging their followers to show some love (read follow this new celebrity as well).

Needless to say within no time the message goes viral and that celebrity has got more followers than the entire population of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh put together faster than you can say twitter. The moral of the story is followers flock to the celebrities like the honeybees flock to the honey. They shower so much of love and bombard them with so many welcome tweets that the celebrity gets overwhelmed with joy and cannot thank enough.The same story gets repeated every time a new celebrity signs up on twitter.

There are no prizes for guessing what goes on in this virtual space. Film actors promote their upcoming flicks. Out of work film actors flirt with danger and try to create controversies to gain some free publicity. Journalists inform. Authors promote their latest books. Politicians give a detailed account of itinerary. Business tycoons tweet about their new ventures.

Amidst all the who’s who of the nation what does the common man do without any followers? Well, he has no business to be on twitter in the first place. But then who will follow these film actors, politicians, journalists and business tycoons? The common man is a mute spectator. He has no say. If he asks tough questions, he is a troll. Well, this is not the end of this story. There is one very interesting breed of quasi-celebrities on twitter. These people spice up your timeline by poking fun at the celebrities, government, government policies or politicians. In popularity they are second to film stars. Even some film stars follow such quasi-celebrities keenly.

So is twitter a ban or a boon? It is a fantastic medium to spread important messages in case of emergencies, natural calamities and during terror strikes. Again when some misinformation is doing the rounds about any larger-than-life figure, it is the fantastic tool to clear the air by tweeting his/her side of the story.But sometimes people misuse this platform by creating false accounts impersonating well-known personalities and spite venom. This doesn’t go on forever as the fake get exposed sooner than later and the accounts get suspended.

Sometimes these big people try to massage their bigger egos on twitter and it is at this time when a common man can have a laugh at their expense. For example, Vijay Mallya tweeted to appreciate his son’s speech at the ongoing IT Conclave. This is hilarious coming as it does from a man who doesn’t let go of any opportunity to lash out at media for highlighting the woes of his beleaguered KFA. I wonder why nobody has started lampooning his tweets as yet.

Sometimes the passing away of some public figure creates an orgy of tributes for the deceased on twitter. The celebrities feel compelled to tweet about it and the mask slips off in the process. This is a wrong precedent as some feelings of grief are more genuine and spontaneous if expressed in private. This type of show of loss is a put on act carried out for the benefits of followers and nobody is a winner in the bargain.

Last but not the least, when a film does well or a cricketer scores a century, there is a competition amongst celebrities to be the first to congratulate the achiever on twitter. This leads to farcical situations as the congratulatory message lacks conviction and sounds half-baked. But everything is momentary on twitter including the attention span of the followers. What is a trending topic today will be a long forgotten topic the next day. This is what makes twitter so addictive for when you are addicted to something, you tend to ignore all the side effects at your own peril.

Enjoy twitter and be happy. It’s a great entertainment with all its doors open roundthe clock. However, sometimes right to admission solely rests with twitter.